Power Amps

Ten Watt

You've never seen an amp like this. 6V6? Check. EL84? Check. Push-pull? Yep. Single ended? Absolutely. Rated at 10 clean watts with both tubes on, or take it down to a single-ended half power vibe with either 6V6 or EL84.

The Ten Watt features a class A push-pull output stage with one each EL84 and 6V6. This mix of output tubes give it a Blackface/Vox feel; with a loose, bluesy bottom end but plenty of chimey mids and highs. The response is very well balanced, due to the unique combination of harmonics in the EL84 and 6V6 tubes. The Ten Watt has a similar volume level and feel to 15W amps from other manufacturers, and is designed to get the majority of it's color from the output stage distortion.

Twenty Watt

EL34 + 2x EL84. Chimey like an old school AC30, with the raw punch and balls of a Matchless, and shimmery highs straight out of Blackface heaven. You gotta try this amp.

The Twenty Watt is our most popular model, with a class A push-pull output stage of one EL34 and two EL84 tubes. At the same time. Or not. Switch any tube on or off to tailor the breakup and power level to suit your taste or venue. The intentionally mismatched output tubes deliver an incredibly smooth transition to breakup and ensure this amp gets the majority of its color from output tube distortion. Comparable to 30W amps from other manufacturers, the Twenty Watt has a tight and punchy bottom end with loads of sparkle and chime in the highs and is very articulate in the mids.

Thirty Five Watt

Crank it! The Thirty Five Watt has similar weight and feel to the Twenty Watt, but with everything kicked up a notch. More authority, more beef, same sparkle and glassy shine. One EL34 and two EL84 tubes running in class AB push-pull for higher efficiency and output power. The volume and feel is similar to a vintage Blackface or a 50W Marshall head, with more presence in the midrange and crystal clear highs. We don't build a lot of the 35W amps, but if you are playing the main stage or do a lot of outdoor festivals, this is the one for you.

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Preamps

12AX7

The 12AX7 is a small signal dual triode, and is hands down the most popular guitar preamp tube. It delivers a great mix of high gain, low noise, and good resistance to microphonics. Nearly every manufacturer of high quality tubes has a version or variant of the 12AX7 (also called ECC83 or ECC803 in Europe), and nearly every manufacturer of high quality amps uses the 12AX7 as their first stage preamp tube. Noble selects top quality 12AX7 tubes from Tung-Sol and JJ/Tesla. Our design doesn't overdrive the tube, but instead takes advantage of the low noise and high gain properties to deliver a crystal clear "bell-like" response, with a minimum of hum, hiss, or audible noise.

Decades of production and research have made the 12AX7 a staple of the rock and roll sound, and as a result it is fairly easy to find a good tube for a reasonable price, even in a strange town right before a gig. The 12AX7 is our default preamp design, and it's hard to go wrong with.

EF86

The EF86 looks very similar to the 12AX7 - they both come in the same small glass envelope, both have 9 pins and will fit into the same socket - but they are NOT COMPATIBLE.

The EF86 is a small signal sharp cutoff pentode that was specifically designed for audio use. It has similar low noise characteristics to the 12AX7, but with even higher gain. This extremely high gain can make the tube susceptible to microphonics in combo amplifiers, or if treated roughly on the road. The EF86 is not as popular or well known in guitar amp applications and there are fewer manufacturers of the EF86 in production today, which can make it harder to find one when you need it (we like Tung-Sol and JJ/Tesla EF806). These tubes also cost more than a 12AX7.

However, if you're willing to live with the added cost and drawbacks, the EF86 has serious balls. In our amps it has a stronger second harmonic (octave) than the 12AX7, which gives it a slightly brighter and more aggressive midrange, and more gain to drive the power tubes over the top into deep breakup.

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Amplifier Construction

Every Noble amp is crafted by hand, built to order, one at a time. Our amplifiers use a hand wired “point to point turret board” construction, unique to Noble and the only one of its kind in the industry. This construction method provides the highest degree of shock and vibration protection for the tubes and critical components, as well as shorter wire runs for more open and noise free sound and a minimum of wiring inside the amplifier. It also allows us a great degree of flexibility in customizing the sound of each amp.

Both the power and output transformers are custom made to our designs, specifically for these amplifiers. The companies doing these parts for us have been in the audio transformer business for several decades and have a long history of excellence.

Our chassis material of choice is aluminum, both for its light weight and excellent electrical conductivity. Materials with higher conductivity are better for electrical shielding, one of the reasons you’ll find Noble amplifiers to be quieter than other amps, most of which use a steel chassis. Aluminum is more expensive than steel, but it also won’t rust or corrode over time.

Noble uses top quality new production vacuum tubes from Winged C/SED, Tung-Sol, Mullard, and JJ/Tesla. We can obtain NOS tubes if desired, but we don’t recommend them. We’ve found the new production tubes from these manufacturers to be excellent in both sound and reliability.

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Cabinet Construction

Our cabinets are custom built by us in house, in the same way as everything else: by hand and one at a time. We use the finest grade void-free baltic birch for every part on our cabinets and heads. Every Noble head, combo, or cab features dual handles to ease setup and transportation (one for each hand), as well as large rubber feet, sometimes on multiple sides to allow different cabinet orientations. Our speaker cabinets can be built open or closed back, or split (half open - half closed).

Noble speaker cabinets are designed to complement the line of Jensen speakers, our standard choice for their excellent sound and construction. We are able to obtain other manufacturers’ speakers at additional cost, but we’ll try to talk you out of it first. We were blown away by the product Jensen is putting out, preferring them for our amps even over popular favorites.